Just a couple days ahead of Mobile World Congress, Swiss watchmaker MyKronoz has debuted what you can call the world’s very first hybrid smartwatch. The company is packing a full-color round touchscreen along with mechanical hands from traditional watches to their latest offering ‘ZeTime.’
The company is renowned for its expansive collection of digital wearables, ranging from fitness bands and heart rate trackers to fully-functional smartwatches. But, it now also has a world’s first, a perfect blend of analog and digital watch tech, to showcase at MWC’17 this year. Speaking about this first-of-its-kind project, Boris Brault, CEO and founder of MyKronoz says,
My inspiration has been to combine the best of our Swiss heritage in traditional watchmaking, with the key features of a smartwatch to persuade the majority of consumers to adopt our wearable technology. This has been accomplished with ZeTime, the perfect hybrid smartwatch.
It combines the best of both worlds: watch hands of an elegant traditional timepiece with a full color touchscreen that instantly shows incoming calls, smartphone notifications, real-time fitness activity, upcoming calendar events, daily reminders and much more, right from your wrist.
While designing the ZeTime, MyKronoz has imbibed their Swiss watchmaking skills into the sleek stainless steel watch case. They have also pioneered the technology enabled them to drill a small hole through the center of a round 240 x 240 pixel TFT color display. This made it possible for them to place the traditional gear system and pass it through the small hole to attach the mechanical hands above the always-on round screen.
The ZeTime is also said to include a mechanical crown on the side for navigation and a 3-axis accelerometer and an optical heart-rate sensor to track activity and sleep. It is water-resistant up to 30 meters of depth and its battery is said to last about 30 days on a single charge — which is wonderful news. MyKronoz has developed a proprietary Smart Movement technology, which allows its mechanical hands to function even when the screen if switched off.
Though the said smartwatch sounds to be an impressive product but it might falter on one specific front — operating system. ZeTime, as one can notice in the image attached above, is powered by a standard OS as opposed to Android Wear. This means there would be a massive lack of third-party app support, a hole which is quite difficult to plug. It is one of the most prominent issues faced by any new entrant in the hardware or software space.
The ZeTime smartwatch will be displayed at the company’s booth on the MWC show floor on February 27. It is, however, expected to debut for general public in early September for $199. This hybrid timepiece is priced fairly low as compared to its competitors, which are at times priced at twice the said price.
